Labs at Work

Hoover, Tucker & Dillon at play.

4 Boys in Black

From Unwanted to Center of Attention

It's hard to believe these dogs were not wanted.

Here are some nice family portraits of

Pal

Shane

Rhett

and Jewel

Success Stories

People often ask if it is hard to give up a foster after inviting it into your house and making it a (temporary) part of your family. Some are hard to say goodbye to, but we keep reminding ourselvest that we do it for the dogs, not for us.

The best part is when we hear back from the dogs new homes and get to see some great pictures of their happy pets. All these great dogs got a second chance thanks to Mid-Florida Retriver Rescue and we are happy to do our small part.

The dog on top is now named Oliver. We will forever remember him as Scooter the puppy with extra personality.

The happy dog in the boat is Dudley.
The Beautiful white dog is Tonto. And the happy dog in the pool is Skipper. All enjoying their new forever homes.

#25 Tucker

Tucker came to foster as a very damaged dog. He was hand shy, meaning if you reached your hand out he thought you were going to hit him. If he was startled he would bite. He didn't trust any people or other dogs.

In a word, he was a wreck.

He came into our home the middle of August, and was succesfully adopted out on January 1. During that time he became a much more balanced dog and we grew to love him. Between his daily walks, good food, and a nice home he became more comfortable.As he settled in, we learned he had many talents.

He is one of the smartest dogs we have ever met. If you told him which toy to bring he would go find the right toy and bring it to play. He invented the game "Goalie Dog" for our family, where he would bring a big fluffy ball and drop it at your feet, then go into a doorway and play goalie while you tried to kick it by him.

We gave him a song "Goalie Dog" based on the Simpson's movie "Spider Pig."

Goalie Dog, Goalie Dog
Does whatever a Goalie Dog does.
Can he swing from a vine?
No he can't he's a dog.

O.k. it was silly, but all you had to do was sing the song and Tucker would show up with his goalie dog ball looking forward to playing.

Camp Hoover was very good therapy for Tucker. We gave him a long time, but he came out much better than when he showed up. Along the way we briefly grew to three dogs and he learned how to get along as part of a pack.

None of it was easy, but Tucker is truly one of our most rewarding foster rehabilitations.

Dillon Revisited

Poor Dillon. He went to his foster home with promises of walks and going fishing on the weekend. Unfortunately, his new owner became sick shortly after taking him and couldn't do anything with him.

Dillon returned to us on November 11. He left us in July at 85 pounds and came back at 104 pounds. He struggled to make it through the morning walk, and really couldn't keep up with Hoover and Tucker at all. All in all he was pretty unhappy, and had a bad case of halitosis to boot.

Breakfast and Dinner at Camp Hoover was pretty unfair to poor Dillon. The smallest dog, Tucker, got two cups of food to help fill out his skinny puppy frame. The medium dog, Hoover got 1.5 cups. And Dillon the huge dog got a mere cup. When he was adopted back out to a nice family on December 16 he was down to a more manageable 95 pounds.

Dillon has a beautiful face, and was very popular at the Petco meet and greets. Like Bentley before him, he talked quite a bit whenever someone came home. Probably asking where they've been.

After a month he was looking like a healthy lab again. He could manage the morning long walk and enjoyed playing with his two buddies Hoover and Tucker. We were never quite sure how to describe the three of them. Pack seemed too obvious. Gang didn't cut it either. We settled on "a convention of labradors." Thought that had the proper ring of a harmless group of black labs.

#24 Dillon

Dillon is a big block headed black male. Loved the water, came to us at about 85 pounds.

#23 Duke

May '07. Duke was around long enough for a short swim then off to his new owners.

#22 Tucker

Tucker #1, later renamed Pal, was yet another black male rescue who was with us for only a short while in April 2007. He loved the water and enjoyed his stay at Camp Hoover.

#21 Scooter

We all loved Scooter, so he gets extra pictures here. Scooter came to us named Hendricks, he had been adopted by a family that needed to get rid of him because he grew big. Who knew?

When Scooter came to us he was a cute 7 month old puppy. He loved us and Hoover, but got scared by much of the rest of the world. On his first walk he sat down in the yard and didn't want to leave. As we walked around the neighborhood he shied away from anything "big" Big could mean anything.

One night we were taking our evening walk when the neighbors great dane came out to say hello. Scooter shucked out of his collar and ran back to the safety of our house. Another time we were walking around the marina and he insisted we walk on the other side of the street away from the scary boats sitting in the boatyard.

Scooter spent Christmas 2006 with us, then a week on our boat. He was housetrained, except when he had to go to shore to pee. If you picked him up to get him ashore you would squeeze the pee out of him. It was comical, if a bit messy. We nicknamed him Squeezy after that.

Other nicknames he picked up along the way included "Mr. FartyPants" and "Sir Poopsalot" but we don't need to get into details.

#20 Bo

Bo came to us as an extremely afraid dog. If you clapped your hands at him he would pee on the floor in fear. We started calling him Boo

Over time he got much better.

I like the white lightning bolt on his chest.

#19 Blackie

Blackie was a real water dog. He went to a very nice couple and is now known as Skipper.